Cliffy B: Heavy Rain Missed Its Chance With The Ladies

Joking that women “love two things in life, queso dip and true crime,” Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski told a podcast that he felt Heavy Rain missed out on bigger sales by not marketing itself more to the fairer sex.

“It feels like such a great game for a girl who wouldn’t normally play games,” Bleszinski said in Irrational Games’ latest podcast (get it here). “You’d see Heavy Rain advertised in PlayStation Magazine and things like that. I’m like, dude, why isn’t this in Entertainment Weekly? … Why aren’t you marketing this to the right crowd?”

Bleszinski prefaced his remarks with lots of praise for the game itself. “I fell in love with it,” he said earlier, also calling it “brilliant” and complimenting its tight narrative. “There were scenes were I was almost literally dropping the controller it was paced so well,” he continued. “If you had that and shipped a disc with all those women’s magazines you’d maybe have sold twice as much.”

He may have a point, but guy gamers, ask yourself this: How would you feel about a video game outwardly or aggressively marketed to women, however well made or serious it was? Now, I know we all really do have real (i.e. non-inflatable) girlfriends around here, but even if we do and especially if we didn’t, “chick flick” is as much a kiss of death to some demographics as it is a moneymaker to others. Likewise, might it be too much of a marketing risk to be seen as tailored for a girl audience, even if it’s a crime thriller?

Irrational Interviews Episode 4: Cliff Bleszinski [Irrational Games]